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Seven Things I Learned
This story is © 2020 Samurai, all rights reserved. The Letter This is a letter I will never send. To whom it is addressed, the answer is no one. No one in particular, anyway. But to whomever stumbled across this, however you may have stumbled across it and in whatever time and place you have done so, I extend a warm welcome. I also promise to stop talking like that so much. Maybe. Maybe not. Anyhow, I'm writing this as a sort of memoir. I have seven things I want to teach the world, or at least the finder of this letter. These seven lessons I learned through a fairly short span of time, but they are important lessons all the same. To teach them to you, I will start at the beginning. My life wasn’t terribly eventful until I was twelve years old – the age at which I started martial arts. It was something I had always wanted to do but hadn’t had the courage to try until then, and it was the most fun I had ever had. I met the greatest friends I had ever known, and though our school went through several changes as people came and went, they were still my family. That never changed, not even the day everything did. It was a hard day for me, the day I left that wonderful place, and it was hard to leave all those memories behind. When I stepped off the mat for the last time, it was like leaving my homeland, knowing I could never return. My reason for leaving was simple: too much was changing all at once, and I knew it would never be the same. And so I left the place that had become more like home than my actual home, left the people who had become more like family than those bound to me by blood, and it’s safe to say that nothing’s been the same since. The hole it left in my heart is still there, and though over the years I’ve learned that one should be open to new experiences, I put up a wall at first. Even though I went on to break that wall down, no one wanted to know me. I’d shut them all out, and that was my first mistake. There were many more to come. I am not one to blame others, but from my perspective, they were just as at fault as I was. The whole thing was a mess, really, and it’s a wonder I stayed there for two years. Needless to say, the second chapter in my martial arts journey was not a pretty one, but I learned a lot from it. There were seven major lessons - the lessons I mentioned earlier, in fact - which are listed here in no particular order of importance, and each, well, taught me something. That’s what a lesson does, though some of these took a while for me to act upon or have yet to be acted upon. The first lesson was my first mistake. Lesson One: Build Bridges, Not Walls The Last Day It was our last day – we both knew it – and we stepped off the mat for the last time, casting nostalgic glances at the empty dojang. It was late, and we were the only guys in the place, but we didn’t care. Neither of us was willing to walk out those doors for the last time. It seemed that I’d come there only yesterday, a little boy whose understanding of the vast world of martial arts was as sparse as an Applebee’s at 3AM. Or maybe not – never been to an Applebee’s. But my point is, I didn’t know crap back then, but in what felt like seconds, I learned a lot. I learned kicking techniques, poomsae, self-defense skills, and how to take a hit like a man. I learned so much that I wanted to think I'd learned everything, though I knew there was much more to learn, and there always would be. The learning had felt instantaneous. But however fast, the time had gone by, and we were here now years later, Sasha and I, dumbfounded at how much everything had changed. It wasn't bad change, necessarily, but all the originals were gone, and we didn't know anyone anymore. The people were nice enough, but this place had lost the magic it once had, because when the originals left, they took it with them. All of it. It was too different. We couldn't stay. That wasn't my only reason for leaving - Sasha had hit me with the news that he was moving back to Russia to be with his grandmother, who was very sick. So not only was I leaving the only home I'd ever known, I was losing my best friend too. That was always fun. "Well," Sasha said. "It was certainly fun." "Yeah," I replied lamely, silently screaming at my emotions not to spill over. "I'll write to you." "Come now," Sasha said, whacking me on the back, "we have cell service in Russia, you know." Letters have more meaning, and I love writing them. But I didn't tell Sasha that - I only nodded, and the next few minutes, our last few minutes, flew by as fast as time could run. Before I knew it, I was on my way home, and it felt like someone had taken a big chunk out of me and ran over it with a truck. I was going to miss Sasha. The First Day The new place was about as different as they came. It didn't have the same welcoming atmosphere - the old place had that even when all the originals were gone - and it smelled very strongly of whatever cleaner they used. The colors were the same, but they were washed-out and reeked of age; the black paint was more of a sad, chipped dark grey, and the red was a faint dark pink. The lady at the front desk was a stocky, stern-faced woman with a nagging voice that I immediately decided I couldn't stand. "Category:Content (Samurai) Category:Stories